Interpretation of mechanisms of life creation in the Russian theater of the 21st century

Abstract

The article critically analyzes a number of performances, the dramaturgical material for which is biographies, documentary texts presented in compilation with artistic, theoretical and philosophical works. The plays are conceptualized as stage interpretations of the life-creative programs of Vladimir Odoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. The author also asks the question about the application by contemporary theatre-makers of the tools of mystification, mythologization and demythologization in the projection of performative comprehension of the text of human life. It is shown that the director with the help of this toolkit and by means of theater not only popularizes, but also creates a new cultural myth or debunks archaic notions about a major historical figure, detecting the points of intersection with the contemporary culture of estrangement. In such directorial decisions the staged biopics begin to sound like a total spectacle about the tragedy of life creation and its Mephistophelean and creative principles.